A Cloud taking Flight
by ReNeOed
Summary: AU... Neville is BWL. Harry, three years older than Neville, lives with his parents and goes through Hogwarts trying to become the best flier in the world. Lots of Quidditch. Features a genius Harry. HP/NT
1. The Beginning

**DISCLAIMER  
**

This is a work of fan fiction based on characters written by J.K. Rowling, and I do not claim ownership over them. The whole story will be based on my imagination. I'm not profiting in any way from this story. Thank you J.K. Rowling for creating this world.

1. The Beginning

* * *

"Follow me! Stick together, first years! No need to fear the troll if you follow my orders! Stay close behind me, now. Make way, first years coming through! Excuse me, I'm a prefect!"

"And an idiot, Percy, did you even check to see if all the students are present?" I ask the pompous idiot.

"I'm the prefect here, Potter. So shut up. Are any students missing from the group?"

After a few seconds of looking around, two girls simultaneously shout out "Hermione!"

"Where is she?"

"In the first floor bathroom, she's been crying all day."

"Right, well, the teachers are gone off to the dungeons. So I'll get her, Mr. Prefect."

I run to the first floor, and to the girls' bathroom. And as soon as I get to the door, a foul stench reached my nostrils. Something huge is coming along the corridor. Guess what it was.

So I enter the bathroom and see a weeping girl, and she's looking at me weirdly, probably thinking I'm some pervert playing some joke on her. I place a finger on my lips telling her to be silent. And it works. So I silently move towards her, and whisper on reaching her, "There's a troll outside the door. So stay silent." She's looking at me like I've gone mad. She's opening her mouth to reply when... BOOM! The door flies into the bathroom, and she gives a shriek... Damn it!

Thankfully, we're on the other end of the bathroom, so at least our deaths won't be instantaneous. The troll looks at us like we're its favorite toys. I know that the troll's skin is pretty spell resistant. So, I can't really hurt it directly. It's walking towards us, so I point my wand in front of its feet, and cast a _Glacius. _With a loud thud, the troll falls on its back. So, I float its club a few feet above its head and release it. Then I banish the club behind its head and accio it. With another loud thud, it seems that the troll has fallen asleep.

I look at the girl beside me, and she's sleeping too. So, I pick her up in my arms and get going towards the Hospital Wing. I wonder if I was this small three years ago. I don't even need to use _Mobilicorpus _on her.

I call for Madame Pomfrey on reaching there, and place the girl on a bed. Is it wrong for me to think that the girl is extremely cute? Pomfrey asks me what I did this time and points towards my bed. That's right. I have my very own bed in the Hospital Wing.

I just give her a grin, point towards the girl and tell her that a troll scared her. It seems like the news hasn't reached her yet. So I tell her that Quirrell got scared too. She starts ranting about useless defense teachers as she gets a calming draught. On coming back, she casts an enervate on the girl who wakes up slowly and looks around at her surroundings. I give her a tiny wave as she looks at me. Then she jumps up and shouts out "Troll!" while Madame Pomfrey puts her back in bed while handing her the calming draught.

She calms down after a minute or two of looking around.

"The troll's gone, alright? It can't hurt you now. Now why were you in the bathroom?"

She tells us about crying in the bathroom because of mean boys and having no friends. She seems to be in tears again, so I do what mum does when Rose is sad.

I give her a nice big hug while trying to run my hands through her bushy hair, her very bushy hair. She calms down soon enough and falls asleep on my shoulder. I ask Madame Pomfrey if I should leave her here. She says yes, so I lay Hermione back on the bed. I almost go ahead and lay a kiss on her forehead. But I hardly know her, so I control myself and get going towards my common room.

On the way, I go back to the bathroom and tell McGonagall about what happened. I get 30 points for my house. Yay?!

Neville, his Weasley friend and a few others are waiting for me in the common room. I stop myself for laying into them about making the girl feel so unloved. So, I just tell them she's okay and asleep and go up to bed to write a letter to my family about the incident. I decide to write another one to Padfoot about taking out a troll. Chuckling to myself imagining his reaction, I go to bed and fall asleep.

Next morning, I decide to visit the Hospital Wing after breakfast. But I find that she's already gone back to the common room.

When I get there, I find the boy who lived, apologizing for his friend's hurtful words and asking her if she wanted to walk down to breakfast together. Well, that's nice. But she's already had it in the hospital wing.

When she sees me, she runs and gives me what would have been a bone crushing hug had I been her size.

"Thank you, thank you, thank you!"

"I loved saving a princess from ugly trolls, so it's no problem, Miss Granger."

She lets out a chuckle and we start talking. I find out that her parents are dentists and that when she's not sad, she talks in a slightly bossy way. Maybe that's why others like to stay away from her.

Then she starts talking about her lack of friends due to her excellence in classes.

"Maybe I shouldn't do so well in class. Then maybe others will like me."

"Shut up! That's a horrible idea. Simply being good at studies doesn't mean you can't have friends. You just need to separate the two. People just don't like to hear about someone who's better than them at everything. So, it's okay to be good at studies. Just don't go around talking about it with everyone."

"But I don't mean that I'm better than them."

"Yes, but that's what they end up thinking. Some of them are going to be jealous of you, no matter what. Like that Weasley kid. Don't listen to idiots like him."

"But the girls in my dorm are really completely different from me. They're eleven and already they spend hours on make up."

"Well, you can't be friends with everyone. There are always people like that, just like there are always some who hate you, no matter what."

"Like that Malfoy boy! He seems to hate people like me for no reason."

"Yeah, it's all pureblood idiocy. But don't you dare let him get to you. My mum's also muggleborn but she's one of the smartest witches out there today. And I bet that you're going to be one when you grow up to."

"Thanks. What does your mum do?"

"She works at the ministry. Basically she experiments with charms. Creating new ones, studying and improving existing ones, things like that. She's an absolute genius."

"And your dad?"

"He's a quidditch coach with the Appleby Arrows. He retired from professional quidditch seven years ago to take care of my sister Rose when mum was busy. He used to play as chaser. Do you like quidditch?"

"Um, not really! It seems pretty scary, and I'm horrible at flying. You're a seeker, right?"

"I was, but this year, I'll be playing as chaser. Dad says I've been flying since I turned one. So by the time I got here, I was good enough to be on a team. I actually started training with the team in my first year. Charlie Weasley taught me to play as seeker pretty well. So, when he graduated, I played as seeker for the last two years. Now we've got Katie Bell and she's really good. And I prefer to play as a chaser. Being a seeker is boring. And I guess listening to me ranting about is pretty boring too."

She chuckles and tells me that it's okay.

"So what do you wish to do after school? I suppose before coming here, you would've wanted to go to a university. My mum tells me that's what she would have done."

"Yeah, it was a pretty big disappointment. But still being able to do magic is good enough."

"You don't have to be disappointed. You can still go to university after Hogwarts if you want. You don't have to give it up for the wizarding world. You just have to hide your magic well. My uncle Remus Lupin stays in the muggle world most of the time. Magic actually makes it pretty convenient. Just don't go around using it openly, or the ministry will have your butt. You can still take muggle exams, go to university. If you can keep up with both, you can even study for them even while you're here. Correspondence courses or something; my mum actually teaches me science and maths in the summer. They're quite useful in the real world."

"That's so great!" She's practically jumping at this point. "I'll just go write to my mum about getting one of those programs. Oh, this is so great. Thanks! Bye."

"Yeah, bye. Good luck!"

I look at my watch to find that it's almost half an hour for my date. So, I get ready and go down to the entrance hall to wait for her.

She comes down looking like usual but with longer blonde hair. She comes up to me and gives me a hug.

"Good morning!"

"Good morning! How are you this morning mademoiselle?"

"Smashing. How're you? I heard that you wrestled with the troll last night. What the hell happened?"

"A girl was missing from the feast when Quirrell came. So I went off to find her and take her to the common room. The troll found us. I punched it and it went down. Nothing important!"

"Idiot! What if you'd been hurt? And how'd you survive? Is the girl okay?"

"I wasn't hurt. I tripped it and it fell, and I used its club to beat it up. The girl's perfectly fine. She was just in shock at the time. Don't worry about it." I give her a little kiss. "Should we get going now?"

"Yeah, sorry for laying into you. Who's the girl?"

"Hermione Granger, a cute little first year. She spent the whole day yesterday crying in the bathroom because some idiots said some mean things to her for being a genius. I'll introduce her to you tonight."

"Sure. I don't need to worry about competition from her, right?"

"No, she's tiny and reminds me of mum _and_ Rose. So liking her that way would be wrong on so many levels. You definitely don't need to worry about it. You're my one and only, love."

She just grinned and kissed me. "You're too much. Let's go."

We spent the morning fooling around in Hogsmeade, spending some time in Honeydukes, and about half an hour in Zonko's with the Weasley twins.

At one, we were having lunch in The Three Broomsticks when Sirius snuck up to me and caught me in a headlock.

"What the hell?"

"Prongslet!"

"Let me go."

"No!"

"Dora, help me!"

"Um... No!"

"Sirius!"

"Alright! Stop shouting!"

"What are you doing here?"

"I read your letter. Nice work. How did it get in?"

"We don't know yet. I haven't talked to the teachers since. Quirrell apparently found it, and ran to the great hall to notify others. It's probably got something to do with the third floor corridor that's supposed to kill us."

"So how's the date been going?"

"Great until you showed up. Now, what are you doing?"

"I just came to meet your lovely date. What's her name?"

"Now we both are going to kill you, Sirius."

"Oh so it's Nymphadora. Nymphadora Tonks! What a nice name, Nymphadora. It's so nice to meet you, Nymphadora."

"You're so dead." The said girl muttered through her teeth.

"Alright, alright, I'm sorry. I've actually got great news for you."

"Oh really?"

"I'm serious and you'll love it. Now tell me, what are you playing as this year on the team?"

"Chaser, this new third year girl, Katie Bell, she's going to be the seeker."

"Good, how's the rest of the team?"

"The Weasley twins are the beaters, and they are absolutely amazing." Dora told him.

"Yeah, they're really great. Keeper is captain Oliver Wood. He's really already a pro. Joining a team is all he ever talks about. And the other chasers are Alicia Spinnet and Angelina something."

"Johnson, I think."

"Yeah, we work pretty good together. Wood's excited about this year."

"I bet he's all high and raised."

"Shut up, Sirius!"

"Yeah Padfoot, we had enough of those last year."

"I was with your parents this morning. James and Rose are really proud of you for taking out a troll, but your mother was ready to come here and finish the troll's job and kill you. Then your dad made her think you didn't go out to look for it. You did, didn't you?"

"I didn't. I just went to get a first year girl back to safety. Not to try my luck on fighting a troll, though it did feel pretty good."

"I bet. So Tonks, how goes school?"

"Great, Arithmancy's killing me, though. I think I'll drop it after this year. I've already got Care and Runes."

"I didn't even think of trying it out. Even Moony found it hard."

"Harry's great at it though."

"Oh don't worry about that. This idiot's been studying that for years with his mum."

"Yes, and when this guy talks about it, all I hear is blah blublah, blah blah."

"Sorry, love. I won't talk about it, unless you ask me."

"You know, Sirius, Vector's falling in love with your godson."

"Yep, she even lets me call her Septima when we're alone."

"That's my pup. Should we be talking about this when we're with your girlfriend?"

"Don't worry Padfoot, I've told dear Septima we could only ever be friends, though I can ask her if she wanted to be my aunt."

"I'm so proud of you son. But don't ask her that. Just tell her a little about me. Maybe about how I defeated a giant single handed once!"

"And no one else saw you or the giant."

"Give me veritaserum and I'll prove it."

"Ahem, you sure you want him to give veritaserum to you?"

"Oh, hell no, but anyway I've got great news for you. Your dad heard that Puddlemere's sending scouts to your next match. Apparently news of you and Wood reached them and they want to sign you guys on early, so that you don't do a Charlie Weasley and choose dragons over Quidditch. I'll never know what the hell that guy was thinking."

"Oh! Wow. Man, that's awesome. So will we get time off from school or train only during summers?"

"I don't know all the details, maybe weekends. They'll probably talk to you guys after the match. When is it?"

"Next Saturday, us versus Slytherin. Can I tell Wood about this?"

"Sure, just know that there is a possibility that they don't come. So don't go spreading the news."

"Right, well, thanks Padfoot."

"No problem pup. Just train hard."

"Definitely. If there's nothing else please get going. I want to get congratulations from Tonks."

"Right, see you pup."

"Bye Sirius. Now come here, you pro."

After a few minutes of snogging, we go to look for Wood to tell him the news. And of course, he just decides to plan more training sessions for the next week. But this time, I'll be the last one to say that that's a bad idea.

We spent most of the day in empty alleys. We visited the Hairdressing salon to see some new hairstyles to work on. Tonks dragged me off to Dominic Maestro's to listen to some crap music. Other than Dora's favorite group Weird Sisters, which, by the way, is led by a man, I have yet to listen to see a wizarding music group I actually like.

By the time we got back from our wonderful day out together, we were both too tired to go to the library as we had planned, so I just rested with my head in Dora's lap at my favorite spot in the whole school.

During dinner, I introduced Tonks to Hermione, who seemed really pleased about having another friend. We had a long goodnight kiss as we separated on our ways to our respective common rooms. She was in Hufflepuff like her father and I was in Gryffindor like mine.

We had met when we were five, at least the first time we were aware of meeting each other, and had been together since, just best friends for eight years, and then became an official couple on our first Hogsmeade weekend last year.

The next week passed quickly with quidditch practices.

And finally on Saturday morning, it was time to fly.


	2. The First Ones

2. The First Ones

The match started with a bang after Wood's extra special pre-match speech. Fifteen brooms went up into the air when Hooch gave a blast on her silver whistle. The Gryffindor chasers got into the game right away as Harry caught the quaffle and sped off towards the Slytherin goals, Angelina and Alicia to his sides.

"That's Harry Potter with the quaffle, passes to Alicia Spinnet, who is belting towards the Slytherin chasers, she passes to Angelina Johnson – no, it's a feint as she lets the ball fall down where Potter catches it and goes below the Slytherin chasers and up to the hoops, he's going to score, no – feints a pass to Angelina, who scores easily, beautiful play by the Gryffindor chasers who are now speeding back to their end of the pitch."

Harry waited till the Slytherin keeper got the quaffle back and passed it to the nearest chaser, and then sped towards the Slytherin side of the pitch again.

"Flint passes the quaffle to Adrian Pucey – intercepted by Potter who belts across the pitch – and scores! Gryffindor 20 – Slytherin 0, Flint moving up with the ball, a Weasley twin hits him with the bludger, he loses the quaffle, Pucey below him has got it – no, Potter's suddenly there, that was some fast flying, he dodges a bludger, he's going to score, feints and blindly passes the quaffle back to Angelina Johnson, who throws the quaffle, the keeper dives, misses, Gryffindor scores again. Potter's on fire today, while Wood hardly seems to be getting any action. The Slytherin chasers set off again, Pucey being flanked by Flint and Archer. Pucey nearly gets clobbered with an incoming bludger, passes to Archer, who sends it off to Flint, who does a barrel roll, to show off, apparently, or maybe confuse the Gryffindor chasers, and gets a bludger to the back of the head, hope it hurt – "

"JORDAN" growled Professor McGonagall.

"Sorry professor, Spinnet catches the quaffle as it falls, and gets hit by a bludger from a Slytherin beater, loses the quaffle, Johnson catches it, throws it hard towards the Slytherin hoops, Potter comes speeding and catches it, he's going to score, throws it towards the middle hoop, the keeper misses it completely as the quaffle spins through the left goal and Gryffindor's ahead by 40, with Slytherin yet to score a goal, actually with Slytherin yet to even make an attempt to score a goal."

Harry spun around and came face to face with two oncoming bludgers from two different angles. He instantly caught the broom in a sloth grip hold as the first bludger moved just over its head and spun around so the second one just scraped the side of his left foot.

"And that's a foul by the Slytherin beaters, trying to take out Potter when he didn't have the quaffle; it's a penalty for Gryffindor. Potter takes it, and scores."

After five minutes, the Gryffindor chasers had scored four more goals when the snitch made its first appearance in the match.

"Katie Bell seems to have seen the snitch, dives towards it, dodges a bludger, the Slytherin seeker looking for the snitch, he finds it and sets off towards it, and he seems closer to its current position. Faster, Katie! Oh! She gets a bludger in the back, hope she's okay, the slytherins are only 90 points behind, they'll win if they catch the snitch now. He's chasing the snitch hard, Potter comes belting down between the seeker and the snitch. A Weasley twin hits the seeker with a bludger, the bludger hits his broom, he seems to be spinning out of control, and… stops spinning. The seeker, Bulgarin, no, Faustin –"

"It's Alderin"

"Right, thanks professor, looks at Hooch, who doesn't see that as a foul, right decision, and Potter's moving back to the Gryffindor hoops where Slytherin chasers are still trying to get their first goal. Flint's trying to score, throws it hard, Wood dives and blocks it. Excellent work by the Gryffindor keeper, the quaffle's in the hands of Angelina, what an attractive girl that is – "

"Jordan, commentate on the game."

"Sorry professor, she's moving up the pitch, dodges an oncoming bludger, passes the ball to Spinnet who's to her left, the chasers rocketing up the pitch in formation, she passes the quaffle back to Angelina who throws it right to Harry to dodge a bludger, the slytherin chasers come up as Potter tries to pass to Alicia – no, feints it and sends the ball flying up above the chasers, dodges the slytherins in front of him, goes to the ball, and… SCORES. Gryffindor up by a hundred and ten points!"

Harry moved up to Katie as he went back and shouted, "Let's take him out." Katie nodded and waited for the rest of the team to get in position. Then she suddenly changed directions and went as fast as she could straight towards Harry.

"It looks like Katie Bell has seen the snitch near the Gryffindor hoops, Alderin's right on her tail. And Potter's coming towards them, Bell dodges down, Potter's going to crash into Alderin, moves up at the last moment, and a bludger gets Alderin right in his nose. Ouch… That terrific move's going to put him out of the game for a few minutes. Madam Hooch gives slytherin team a penalty for blatching, Flint taking his shot, and… Wood makes a brilliant save, and bludgeons it to Alicia, who sends it up to Angelina, who passes it down to Potter, who sends it flying off to Alicia, who throws it to Angelina, who dodges a bludger, and passes it back to Alicia, who gets hit by a bludger in the back of the head, I hope she's fine, and loses the quaffle, it's falling, and Adrian Pucey's got it, he passes it to Flint, who passes it to Archer, and it's taken by Potter in the middle of the pass. Potter's belting across the pitch, he's going to score – no, he fakes a throw to the right and… SCORES."

Flint was shouting at his keeper as Harry was doing a handstand while flying back to his position.

"See Flint, that's how you show off. Harry Potter seems to be on fire today with seven goals and three assists out of the twelve goals Gryffindor has already scored in this game. Angelina's got three and Spinnet with the remaining two. The Slytherin team is yet to score a point. Wood hasn't let anything pass him tonight. The Slytherin chasers are moving towards the other end of the pitch. Flint passes to Pucey, back to Flint, sends it to Archer, dodges a bludger, passes it to Pucey, Potter trying to steal, passes it back to Flint, who gets hit by a bludger in the back, the quaffle slips through his hands but Archer's got it, and tries to score, easily saved by Wood, gives it to Spinnet, who sends it to Angelina and ouch, Alicia gets a bludger in the side of her head, be careful. Angelina moving up the pitch alone, dodges a bludger, she's going to be blocked by the Slytherin chasers, sends the quaffle flying above them, and Potter's somehow there, where did he come from? Potter tries to score, saved at the fingertips by the Slytherin keeper, the quaffle's falling down, but Angelina's got it. She's surrounded by the Slytherin chasers, and a bludger hits Flint on the top of his head, he's out like a light, Pucey moves to stop the guy from falling. Angelina passes to Alicia who seems to have recovered, and… she SCORES. The Slytherin team takes a timeout. Gryffindor is ahead by 130 points."

The team got back to the ground and got in a huddle.

"Alright, great game this far guys, Twins, attack Alderin when he comes back, Katie, stay near the middle of the pitch, be ready to finish the game, and chasers, don't stay back now, go one on one, get the ball as quick as you can, and score as many goals as you can," instructed Captain Oliver Wood.

"You were great too, Ollie."

"Absolutely"

"Spiffing"

"Up there"

"Harry, the twins are enough, we don't need triplets now," Wood said to Harry who had morphed into a Weasley twin.

"Alright, let's go," Angelina shouted out.

"The teams are back up in the air again. The Slytherin chasers moving up the pitch in formation, Katie Bell comes crashing down right in their middle, breaks up the formation, the Gryffindor chasers get up to them to flag each of them, Angelina's trying to steal the quaffle from Archer, who tries to pass it to Pucey, but it's intercepted by Alicia, she loops in the air to go back through the pitch, half of it upside down. You go, girl. Dodges a bludger, tries to score, feints and… scores. The stands are bawling their lungs out. I can't even hear myself up here. Hey, Angelina, want to go out with me?"

"Jordan!" shouted McGonagall, though with half a smile on her own face.

"Sorry Professor, turns out she could hear me, well the Slytherin chasers trying to start a play, but the Gryffindor team are being pretty aggressive, giving the Slytherins no room to move freely, Alicia's trying to steal from Flint, and a disgusting foul from the Slytherin captain, who punches that beautiful girl on the face, that son of a –"

"That's it, you're not commentating in the next match."

"I'm so sorry, professor, but that was a bit too much, anyway back to the game, it's a penalty, Angelina takes it, and… scores!"

As the stands cheered for the Gryffindors, Katie noticed the snitch moving near the ground right below her.

"The Gryffindor seeker's diving down towards the ground, the Slytherin seeker thinks it's a feint, Katie straightens her broom as she nears the ground, she HAS seen the snitch. That's a great chase going on, she's almost got it. And… She's caught the golden snitch. She's holding it up. Gryffindor completely destroyed the opposition, winning 300 – 0. Oh look, Flint is chasing the Slytherin seeker, he looks ready to kill. Madam Hooch has to intervene to save the poor guy."

But Harry wasn't hearing any of this as he was caught in the middle of a massive group hug, all of them hooting and howling at the top of their lungs. From there, they went to the changing rooms to change back into their school robes.

As soon as Harry got outside, he was attacked by a pink haired monster.

"You were awesome. You're so amazing. I love you. Congratulations," exclaimed the girl now lying on top of him.

He just laughed and kissed her in thanks, to many whistles and howls from his teammates.

As the team started to go back to the common room, Professor McGonagall called Harry and Oliver to accompany her to her office to meet with some officials. Tonks told Harry good luck and went off with the rest of the team to the Gryffindor common room for the party.

"You ready for this, Harry?"

"I guess, the game went brilliantly, though you didn't really get a chance to show off your skills."

"Well, good luck."

"To you too, Ollie."

"Well, Mr. Potter, Mr. Wood, this is Mr. Novak Sykes from Puddlemere United. He's here to talk to you about your career options."

"Nice to meet you guys, brilliant game today."

"Thank you sir, nice to meet you too."

"Yes sir, great to meet you."

"Well, our team is extremely impressed with your performances and would like you to join us as soon as possible."

"What about school, sir?"

"If you join, you will have to join training for at least five hours every weekend. So, yes, your studies will be somewhat affected. Training won't be mandatory during exam time, though you can come if you choose to. For now, the contract will just allow you to use the training grounds. You won't actually be joining the team. But, you will have to stay with our team at least until you're eighteen, if you sign the contract. You can officially join the team and have the chance to play in matches after the end of this year, maybe next year you will play for us professionally. For now, you will have unrestricted access to the training grounds on weekends. Here, these days are holidays for the team. Your Christmas break coincides with ours so you can't really train during that time. Your pay will be 500 galleons per month for this year. At the end of the year, you'll have to sign a new contract but that will be decided then. Unfortunately, when you join a professional team, you're not really allowed to play on the Hogwarts Quidditch team. So, though you can train here, you can't play in the matches after this year."

"Woah, that's too much information. But, I think I'm sure I'd join your team. Where do I sign?"

"The same for me, sir."

"It's good to know that you're both up for it. I'll get the contracts written up today and get back here tomorrow. Thank you, Mr. Wood. Mr. Potter, could you stay back for a minute?"

"Thank you sir, see you at the party Harry. Good day professor."

"See you Ollie," I said to his back.

"Well, Mr. Potter,"

"You can call me Harry, sir."

"Well, Harry,"

"Woooooohooooooooo," Wood shouted outside our door.

McGonagall went to the door to reproach him as Sykes chuckled.

"I love to see such excitement for quidditch."

"Oh, you've seen nothing from him, sir." Harry told him with a grin as he chortled.

"I'm sure, anyway, I was here to see how you performed as a seeker, but your performance as a chaser was exquisite as well. However, our team already has a very good trio of chasers, so you'll probably have to play as the seeker next year. The next season, there may be a possibility of you being chaser, but please don't keep your hopes up."

"That's okay, I don't mind being seeker if it's in Puddlemere."

"Excellent, I also wanted to talk to you about your family. They'll be okay with you joining our team, right?"

"Oh please don't worry about that. We've already talked about it, and we all think that it's better that I don't join dad's team, because that'll just lead to people undermining both of us."

"Good. Well, it was great to meet you, Harry. I'll see you and Oliver tomorrow with the contracts. Have a good day, Professor. It was good to see you again."

"Good day, Mr. Sykes. Mr. Potter, just make sure that you don't let your grades suffer because of this."

Harry nodded and started to leave, when she said in a quiet voice, "Also, I'm proud of you, Harry. Great game today!"

He turned around and gave her a grin, "Thanks Aunt Min."

When Harry got back to the common room, the party was completely on. Unfortunately, Tonks had to leave early to get back to her dorm, and Harry went back to his bed to get some well deserved rest after she left.

The next morning, Harry woke up feeling refreshed, and thinking about the last day made him happier than he had been in a long time.

He went down to the common room where he saw Hermione sitting by the fire reading Quidditch Through the Ages. He sneaked up to her and sat down right beside her. She looked up at him and gave him a smile while saying congratulations.

"Thank you… What are you reading?"

"Oh, just reading about the British teams. I'm not really interested in the sport, just the history. But still, am I the only one to think that it's unfair that the seeker's job on a team is so much more important than any of the others?"

"Well, when we play quidditch in school, it sure is. Even with a hundred and fifty points lead, had the Slytherin seeker caught the snitch yesterday, we wouldn't have won. But just wait until you see a professional match. There most teams have their own strengths and tactics. Some teams have great beaters, so they can keep the other team's seeker and chasers in line. Some have great attacking chasers, like our team was yesterday. They try to score as fast as they can to get a huge lead, and once it's over a hundred and fifty, the game's pretty much done. Moreover, the snitch is even faster and harder to catch in pro games. Some teams have brilliant defense, they just don't let the other chasers score or let the seeker get to the snitch."

"What's your favorite way of playing?"

"I don't have any yet. I'm still trying out different ways of playing. Maybe I'll know next year. Hey if I get any extra tickets for some match next summer, would you like to come?"

"Oh, you really don't have to. I'll probably be going somewhere with my parents on holiday."

"Okay, but you're going to have to promise to come to my first match, though, whenever it is."

"No promises yet, good sir. We'll see."

"Oh! Alright, have you had breakfast yet?"

"No, I'm just waiting for Lavender and Parvati to come down. I'll be going with them."

"Good. Are they warming up to you?"

"Oh yes, I'm quite famous in my year now for having seen the troll. And I'm trying not to be insufferable, sometimes I start speaking like I used to but I've told the others to stop me if I do. So it's much better now."

"I'm so happy for you. Just take care, okay? Don't let anything anybody else says get to your head. So are you going to go for the muggle exams as well?"

"Oh yeah, mum and dad were really happy about it. They were afraid I was going to head off into a new world and forget about them. Thanks for talking to me that day. You helped me so much."

"It was my pleasure, ma'am. Talk to me if you have any problems with anything, okay? I'm going for breakfast now. I'll see you later."

"Bye, Harry."

He left the common room with his stomach growling. He sat at breakfast with Angelina who seemed to be half asleep. He discreetly cast a Rictusempra on her to wake her up.

She suddenly burst out laughing in a squeaky voice and looked around to find Harry desperately trying to control his own laughter beside her. She kicked his shins and moved away from him.

Harry met Tonks after breakfast and spent the morning with her walking around the lake. Once Sykes arrived, he and Wood carefully read the contracts carefully a few times before signing them together. Sykes congratulated them and told them to get ready early the next Saturday for a tour of the Puddlemere grounds.

Harry spent the rest of the day in the library finishing up his homework for the next week, and working on his arithmancy project. When going to the Great Hall for dinner, a nervous looking second year came up to him and handed him an envelope.

The envelope was completely blank except his name. After moving into a nearby empty classroom and locking it, he opened it up to find a simple message written in a style he'd only seen once before.

"Portkey to your first mission. 10 o' clock. 4 turns on arrival."

Harry just laughed to himself, thinking 'Could this day get any better?'

At ten minutes to ten, dressed in training slacks, and wearing a dark grey cloak, he entered the Room of Requirement, which was inarguably the most amazing piece of magic Harry had ever seen. He asked the room to allow him to portkey in or out without letting anybody know about it.

Right at ten, a hook behind his navel suddenly jerked forward and his feet left the ground.


	3. Busting it Up

3. Busting it Up

His feet landed back on the ground in a dark room. He took out a fine gold chain from his pocket, put it around his neck and turned the tiny hourglass on it four times.

Around him, the dark room dissolved, and he felt like he was flying backwards, his ears pounding.

Then, he was back on his feet in the same exact room, only this time it was filled with light, and people.

Harry stood up and took a look around. The room was a large room, but was relatively empty only with a few tables laying along the walls the room. There were many identical doors in every direction. In the room with him were two people who were right in front of him. One was about Harry's normal height and had a bored look on his face, while the other was huge and had an extremely well built body and was smiling at Harry.

"Harry Potter, ready to start your training?" spoke the short, bored one.

"I thought today was my first mission," replied Harry.

"It's just a five minute mission, you just go into the ministry, sneak into the Improper Use of Magic Office, and look for this, a tracker" the guy said handing Harry a picture of a weird looking machine.

"And use this," the other guy said handing him a tiny weird looking machine, "on that."

"We don't have a name for that thing, so we just call it a zapper. When you get there, look for the tracker with your name on it. Bring that zapper in contact with it for a second. Job done! Use stealth. Don't get caught!"

"Got it, sir!" said Harry.

"Reeve here will be supervising, and getting you out of a fix if you get in one. You'll get to the ministry by portkey into his office on the DMLE, same floor as your objective, and Reeve will have the return one. Now you're familiar with your cloak's features, right? Well then, get going. We'll start when you get back."

"Let's go, kid!" said Reeve, taking out a keychain from his pockets.

Harry put his hood up and turned on his cloak's invisibility before putting his hand on the offered portkey and experiencing the familiar jerk behind his navel.

They appeared directly inside a cubicle filled with various dark detectors and posters of wanted fugitives.

"I'll be watching from in here, kid. Get going. You're that way," said Reeve, pointing to his left, "Don't raise any alarms."

Harry got out of the cubicle as carefully as he could, his cloak and shoes muting any sounds made by his movements, walking in the specified direction. Soon, he came to a door with the words 'Improper Use of Magic Office' on it. He tried to open it to find it locked. He took out a knife from a pocket, a gift from his godfather, put it in the lock, and slid it from top to bottom. He pushed the door open after a click sounded and slipped inside into the dark.

He looked around trying to have his eyes adjust to the dark, but soon gave up and switched off his cloak's invisibility and activated the lights on his left arm sleeve. He saw a single desk alongside large file cabinets in the room, with a door behind it. Harry went up to the door and used his knife to open it up. The room he entered was huge with ten long tables spread evenly with all kinds of machines on them. He moved across the lines, trying to read the words written below the different machines, finally stopping when he came to "Rapier, David" and moving back.

He moved along the previous line, looking for his own name, finally coming to stop beside his tracker. He took out the zapper thing given to him and brought the two in contact. He felt a mild shock for a second. After he was sure that the job was done, he walked back out carefully, locking the door behind him. He switched off the lights and activated his invisibility before leaving the office. Reeve was waiting when he got back to his office. Harry handed back the zapper and got ready for another portkey ride.

"Here," Reeve said holding out the same keychain as before.

The two went speeding into a whirlpool of wind and swirling color, finally landing back in the same room they had left ten minutes ago.

"Congratulations on the success of your first mission. Now, you don't have to worry about doing magic outside Hogwarts. Just don't be stupid about it."

"Of course," said Harry to the man.

"Exactly after an hour and fifty five minutes, after Reeve's done with you, move back two hours. I'll meet you then."

"Yes sir," Harry said, checking the time on his watch.

"Good luck. Try not to kill the boy, Reeve."

Reeve just smirked back in response.

After the guy had left the room, Reeve went to a table to the side of the room, and picked up a sheet of paper from a table at the side of the room.

"So, you want training in both swords and guns, eh?" Reeve asked Harry.

Harry just gave a nod.

"Well, guns are standard for us, but you sure you want to learn swordsmanship in today's world?"

"I'm confident, sir." Harry said confidently.

"You've got your own sword with you?"

Harry nodded and brought out a shrunken box from an inner pocket and placed it on a nearby table. He used his wand to expand it, smiling inwardly at the freedom to do magic now. He morphed both of his arms, strengthening them considerably, before opening the box and bringing out a sword that was nearly as wide as him and came up to his neck placed vertically.

"HOLY… What the hell is that?" asked Reeve incredulously looking at the monstrosity.

"This is my favorite project," Harry replied with a grin.

"You sure you can handle that thing, kid?" a highly amused Reeve asked Harry.

Chuckling, Harry said, "I can't, but I'm sure I will be able to with time. Right now, I'm just done with the design. There's a lot of rune work still to be done. "

"You know, you can't make it lighter because then it'll be pretty useless. And it seems useless right now because in this state, even I can't play with it." Reeve commented picking the sword up.

"I actually can, because I can just morph my arm muscles into war machines, but the thing is, I would probably lose control of it and do some serious accidental damage. That's why I'm so interested in swordsmanship." Harry said, carefully taking the sword back from Reeve's hands and placing it back on the table.

"What do your parents say about it?"

"Oh! They've got no idea about this. This is a private project. I've built this from scratch. I had to work hard on permanent transfiguration," Harry told the man.

"Well, brilliant work, kid. Let's get to the real stuff now. How skilled are you with it?"

Harry stared at his work for a few seconds and said, "With this size, not skilled at all. I decided not to train with it in the absence of an expert. However, with these," he said putting his wand right in the middle of the hilt and separating the huge sword into three smaller ones, "I have tried out a few things."

"Oh! That's beautiful. Ingenious! May I?" Reeve asked, gesturing towards two of the pieces.

"Sure."

"Wow. Now these feel just right. Are you naming it?"

"Well, the idea of such a sword actually isn't mine. It comes from another sword called First Tsurugi. So, I just think of it as that without the 'first'."

"Tsurugi, nice… Great work, kid… This is definitely something to be proud of. What more are you going to add to it?"

"Shield charms, both physical and magical, magical absorbers, reflectors, unbreakable charms. I'm still researching on how to maintain them all at the same time. Another thing would be shrinking, with simultaneous separation and engorgement of the hilt so that the sword can fit into it. Now, that has to be done differently for the parts when the swords are separated and when they're together. And, and I'm trying to figure out how to tune it to my magic so that I'm the only one who can get it out and use it. So, yes, I've still got a lot of work to do. But, I think it's a worthy goal." Harry finished slightly out of breath.

Reeve chuckled and commented, "Oh it's definitely a worthy goal. Keep working on it. Just don't get yourself cut up. Sure, you've got Madame Pomfrey there but still, be careful."

"Yes sir. I sure will. Will we be starting with swords today?" Harry said, filled with excitement.

"Maybe later, but no swords right at this moment, first we're going to have guns." Reeve said bringing out two handguns from an inside pocket of his cloak.

"Oh, alright," Harry said with a mixture of disappointment, nervousness and excitement, putting back his shrunk sword.

"First things first, non-magical guns are not to be played around with. You don't want to accidentally kill off some guy while kidding around. Be serious when you're near one of those things. Second, as you know, most of this world underestimates muggles. Half of them won't even know what a gun is. And even when they do, they're not going to take them seriously. So, we've got a massive advantage here. Thanks to our secret researchers, we've basically got phasers that are set to stun. And here's yours," Reeve told Harry handing him one of the handguns.

"As you can guess, it's basically the same as casting a stupefy yourself, just without any words or movement. It uses your magic, by the way. So it doesn't have infinite ammo. You're gonna have to work on your aim, handling's pretty easy, there's no recoil. You just need to practice. You've got the Room of Requirement, so you can't ask for a better training ground. And hence, this one here's for training. This one does have nearly infinite ammo. You can guess what it does."

Reeve handed the second gun to Harry, who put away the first one in his cloak.

"That's really it. Just don't forget the things I taught you today. Work on your aim, and your movement. We'll check your progress the next time you're here." Reeve told Harry after spending half an hour teaching Harry various stances, in various situations, standing, crouching, walking, etc. with an aimed gun.

"Right, sir, what's next?"

"Physical abilities, but first explain your metamorphmagus abilities to me," Reeve demanded.

"I can change the DNA of any part of my body, so I can change my hair color and length, my skin tone, my facial features, eye color, whatever. With a little practice, I can change my voice to however I want. I can change my build and height as long as I maintain my body mass. If I want to increase my stamina for running, I can simply make my leg muscles stronger temporarily. I can strengthen my arms and use monstrous swords. I can cure minor injuries with just a thought. Maintaining any change does require some concentration, but I've got enough practice by now."

"So will physical training be any good to you?"

"It will change my base form, which will make some changes easier and some harder. To be honest, I think my current training regimen is good enough for me. I just try to maintain my body mass to what it is, as constantly changing my height leads to major balance issues. Quidditch is good for my torso and arms, and I run enough to be a good runner even without any enhancements."

"How well can you fight hand to hand?"

"I just try to hit as hard and fast as I can while trying to avoid getting hit. I usually make my body extra flexible, arms and fists slightly stronger and I've got enough bludger practice that I'm good at dodging."

"Wanna go a round?" Reeve asked.

Surprised, Harry could only go "Ohkay!"

The two faced each other, both waiting for the other to make their move. Suddenly Reeve brought his right fist into an uppercut, his left arm following an instant later with a hook. Harry stepped back to avoid the incoming punches, then lunging forward trying to catch his opponent in the stomach with a kick. The kick was easily blocked, however, leaving Harry open to Reeve's leg sweep, sending him straight down to the ground. In about two seconds, Harry wasn't in a position to move, nearly every part of his body immobilized.

Reeve let him go after keeping him in that position for a few seconds, and got up, looking a little bit flustered. He gave Harry a hand up and said almost apologetically, "Sorry, I just got bored and carried away. I'm not even gonna be giving you any lessons on that, 'cause I'm not paid to do that."

Harry just looked at him with a half-amused half-incredulous expression on his face for a few seconds before his mouth said, "Don't worry about it. What's next?"

"What you've been looking forward to so much all night, ladies and gentlemen. It's time. To bring out… the swords!" announced Reeve impersonating a TV announcer causing Harry to laugh out loud.

"Right, well we're not gonna be using your sword or swords for any training for quite some time. Just keep working on them. You'll probably be able to use them by the time you're finished with them. Today, we'll just be using these thingies," Reeve said bringing out his wand and conjuring two wooden training swords and handing one to Harry.

Harry spent the next hour working on his balance, breathing and learning how not to accidentally kill himself.

At the end of the hour, having committed unintentional suicide 8 times and being murdered 33 times, Harry was quite tired and Reeve was having way too much fun. Reeve told Harry to take a breather for a few minutes until it was time for him to move back in time again. Harry took a deep breath and spun the hourglass two times. Again, he sped backwards, finally coming to a spot in front of the other instructor, who just looked at him with a bored expression and asked, "Everything go perfect?"

Harry nodded and was pointed to one of the various identical looking doors in the room. He went inside and saw that the room was nearly identical to the one he had just left, only with two chairs on opposite sides of a table that was right in the middle of the room. He sat down on one and waited five minutes for the man to come back.

The guy came in, sat down opposite him and just stared at him for a few seconds with a blank look on his face.

"Sorry for making you uncomfortable, I was just testing you. And you failed, quite miserably. But it would've been a miracle if you hadn't. Your occlumency is nowhere near good enough for this job. The charms we've set on your mind aren't infallible. If a good enough legilimens tries hard enough, he can easily find your deepest secrets, including us."

"You're probably gonna have a massive headache tonight, so brace yourself for that. Now, what do you know about the mind arts?"

"Uh, legilimency is reading through a person's mind, what he's currently thinking or if done forcefully, going through his memories. It's easier with eye contact. And occlumency is the way to avoid legilimency attacks."

"Correct. There are two things to understand, though. First of all, occlumency is not magic. It is just having brilliant control over your mind. Even muggles can learn it. So, it doesn't really matter if you're brilliant at magic or not. You have to focus on your mind. And second, how exactly does legilimency work? The best way I can explain is that your magic orders the other person's mind to broadcast to you, it may simply be what's going on through it anyway or it may be a subconscious answer to a question given to it."

"Now, to be able to defend against passive attacks, the ones that take place so subtly you usually can't even notice, you will have to train your subconscious to either lie to or not respond to any such external influences. The first is harder, and not always possible. The advantage to it, however, is pretty clear, as the attacker can be fooled whereas in the other method, he simply doesn't get a response."

"First, you'll have to learn to defend against active legilimency attacks, that is, the ones that are strong enough to be felt. Then, gradually, your mind will know by itself what to do. When you're up against active attacks, the attacker is completely focusing his concentration on you, so your defense can actually mentally hurt him. Imagine you're reliving someone's memories and they feed you a memory of being under a cruciatus, your body will stay okay, but your mind is practically under attack itself. However, the defender himself will also be reliving the memory in detail, so such an extreme measure will be painful to both."

"Alright, to start, here's an example of how active legilimency feels."

With that, he pointed his wand at Harry and said "_Legilimens_" and the room disappeared from Harry's mind and was replaced by a stream of different scenes from his life. He was three and hit his knee in the door flying on his toy broom. He was seven and falling down from 40 feet. He was eleven and got his arm broken by a bludger. And then, suddenly he was back in the room, on the floor, having fallen from his chair.

He got himself up, and sat back down in his chair and asked, "How do I stop you?"

"For now, just think of not letting me see it, force me out of your mind. Make your mind refuse to let me see anything. If I ask it to show me your flying injuries, your mind should be thinking _'Hell No!'_, not asking me if I wanted popcorn. Next time don't think about how peculiar the sensation is, just think about how much you want to protect your secrets and keep your mind closed to nosy outsiders like me. Tell me when you're ready."

Harry focused on his breathing for a few seconds, and then nodded. Again, he felt the room disappear as he got sucked into his own mind looking at glimpses of his life passing through.

Again, he was seven and about to collide with the floor falling through the air. He was four and falling down the stairs. He was ten and right in the path of an oncoming car. He was seeing a troll advancing on him.

And he was finally able to clear his mind of any near death images, and looking back at the man opposite him on the chair who had an impressed look on his face.

"Good. You were able to push me out. Tell me when you're ready again. This is gonna go on for hours."

And it did. After nearly four hours of constant repetition, he was finally able to constantly keep the man out of his mind, though with a lot of concentration.

"That was really good work, kid. We'll still have to work on it in the future. It's going to be a few weeks before you're going to do anything but training for us. Next time, you'll learn something else as well, and the class won't be as bland as today's. It's almost 9:54. Get ready to leave. Your next time with us will be provided to you in a similar fashion as today. And by the way, I'm called John. Here, hide and take this." John said to Harry and gave him a page from a notebook.

Harry turned on his cloak's invisibility and watched as John left through the same door they came in from.

He waited for about five minutes and then suddenly disappeared into a whirl of wind and colors. He landed in the Room of Requirement just in time to see his six hours younger self leaving. He trudged back to his bed completely knackered, his head landing on his bed just as his brain finally decided to shut down.


	4. Propulsion

4. Propulsion

"Oi! Potter! Wake up!" Angelina shouted at the unmoving form on Harry Potter's bed.

"Go away," his voice came muffled through his pillow.

"You're gonna be late for breakfast, you idiot," Angelina shouted at him.

"Oh my head… Please stop shouting," He pleaded to her.

"Get up!" She shouted again.

"Alright, you evil woman," he said and slowly got up and instantly covered his face in his hands, moaning.

"You alright, Harry?" Angelina asked, finally not shouting.

"No… Headache!" He mumbled through his fingers.

"Want some help getting to Madame Pomfrey?"

"Thanks, Angelina."

"Oh, dear god! That serious?"

Harry smiled and slowly nodded his head. "Could you wait down in the common room for a few minutes?"

"Yeah, yeah…" she said as she moved out the door.

Harry came outside about five minutes later and they slowly set off towards the Hospital Wing.

"So… Congratulations on your signing." Angelina said breaking the silence.

"Huh… Oh yeah, that was yesterday. Thanks!" Harry replied dryly.

"Oh you look so excited about it!"

"Shut up, my head's killing me here."

"Okay okay… We're almost there."

They walked into the Hospital Wing and Harry looked towards his bed to find it occupied by none other than

"Tonks!" Harry moved to grab her in a gentle hug. "What are you doing here, love?" He inquired.

"Just a headache. Hey Angie, what's up?"

"Hello Tonks, just thought I'd bring in your boyfriend in to meet you." Angelina said giving her a wink and a smile.

"Oh really? Thanks, then." And turning to Harry, she asked, "Gonna keep me company, babe?"

"Probably… Where the hell is Poppy?" he asked irritably, sitting down on an adjacent bed.

"Getting my potions, are you alright?"

"Nooo… My head's splitting open, and this devil woman's screams of 'Wake up' are still pounding through my split open head."

"Oh, poor baby! Want me to kiss you and make your head okay?"

"Uh, later love, Poppy's here," Harry said waving at the healer.

"Hello Mr. Potter, I'm so sorry your usual bed's already occupied."

"Oh, it's okay, Ma'am," Harry told her going over and sitting beside Tonks who scooted over, "I can share," he said giving the nurse a wink.

"My condolences, Miss Tonks, but your headache might not be cured after all," the healer said causing Angelina and Tonks to laugh and Harry to get an adorable pout.

"It's okay, ma'am, I can deal with it," Tonks said after a few moments.

"Well here, drink this," the nurse said handing her a blue colored potion, "and the ache should be gone in a few minutes. And what is it this time, Mr. Potter?" She asked turning to Harry.

"My head feels like it is splitting open. It's quite painful." He said in an innocent voice.

"Oh! The same as Miss Tonks then? What were you two doing last night?" she asked in an accusing voice.

"Uh, nothing really, we weren't even together" Harry said.

"It's really just a coincidence," Tonks told her, though she and Harry were both wondering about the other.

"Oh alright then, please wait a minute while I get you your potion, Mr. Potter. Good morning, Miss Johnson, I hope you're alright," Poppy said finally turning to Angelina.

"Quite well ma'am, just escorting Harrikins here. He was quite sulky when I was finally able to wake him up."

"Oh, alright! You can go if you want. These two will be along in a few minutes."

"Well have a good day ma'am. See you two lovebirds later." She waved to the two and left the hospital wing.

"Bye Angie." "Thanks Jolie, see you at practice."

"What time is your practice again, babe?" Tonks asked the head now resting on her right shoulder.

"5… Why?"

"You got anything else planned for the evening?"

"No… Just a bit of homework before dinner, you wanna do something?"

"Just hang out with you, babe." She said softly, nuzzling his natural, messy hair.

"Sure, Dora." Harry said intertwining his fingers with hers.

"Here you go, Mr. Potter. Drink this. You'll be okay in a few minutes. You can go to breakfast then." Poppy said handing the potion to Harry who chugged it in an instant and rested his head back on Tonks' shoulder.

"Thank you ma'am…"

"I'll be in my office," she replied almost through the door to her office.

Harry got up from the bed a few seconds later and pulled Tonks up, whispering "Let's go!"

"She'll miss you, Harry." Harry grinned at her as they left the wing.

"So, what were you up to last night, babe?"

"Oh, working on the sword. Maybe I hit my head with it or something that gave me a headache. How was your night?"

"Eh, nothing special. Just sat most of the time."

After a few seconds of silence, Tonks asked "Hey Harry, do you know of an auror named Reeve?"

He quickly stopped and turned so they were facing each other, looking into each other's eyes.

Harry asked, "Reeve Phaeleh?"

"Yeah, how exactly do you know him? Did Sirius mention him?"

"Uh, no, how do you know him?"

"I asked first, you tell me."

"Um, he works with this guy named" "John!" they both ended at the same time, then blurted out laughing out loud holding on to each other.

"Oh those bastards! Why didn't they tell us? We could train together," Tonks finally said.

"Maybe they were seeing if we could keep the secret from each other or something. Or maybe they were just pranking us."

"Heh… What weapons have you got, swords and guns?"

"Obviously… You?"

"Just guns, for now. Not much to learn in that, though… I'll probably just learn Kung-Fu or something."

"Heh! Nice! Oh I'm so glad I don't have to keep this a secret from you."

"Me too babe." Tonks said, ruffling Harry's hair.

After breakfast, both went back to their dorms to pick up their books for the day's classes.

Classes went as usual, though both Harry and Tonks remained even more cheerful than most days.

A few minutes before 5, Harry was back in the Quidditch pitch having a one on one with Oliver, waiting for the rest of the team to show up.

"7-3, not bad… But aren't you supposed to be a pro level player?"

"Shut up Ollie… You're a keeper… It's easy for you to use your off-hand. Trust me, it's hard for us poor chasers."

Oliver started moving a little below the middle hoop, nearing the middle of the side and center hoop.

Harry waited for a few seconds, noticing his speed and oscillation time, '_1… 2… 3…'_ and rocketed toward the middle loop. When as he got within shooting range, Oliver was near the right hoop, so he focused on the left one and threw the ball as fast as he could.

He looked at Oliver who, having hardly moved at all, looked at him with an amused look on his face. Harry shouted at him, "What! I'm not gonna fake it every time. Now go fetch the ball, Ollie."

"Nice doggy you got there, oh lord of us mini-minions."

"Forgive my minion brother, oh minion lord. He does not know how to continue in this amazing game of flying and hitting balls with sticks"

"without your presence in the air above the lands of our temple. Oh my heart!"

"And your eyes, and your ears, and your mouth, all are off their rockers. Where are the girls?" Harry shouted back, laughing, while catching the quaffle back from Oliver.

"They're all in the locker room,"

"trying to figure out how to lose the stink from their clothes."

"Don't forget the pink mud, brother."

"What the hell is pink mud?" Harry asked.

"Oi! Start working now. Potter, start from the other hoops. Twins, attack Potter."

Harry rushed back to the other end of the pitch meanwhile constantly avoiding two bludgers which were going back and forth between the twins who were moving along either side of him.

"It's a new invention of ours, partner,"

"Scourgify resistant, though it has an easy counter, you know,"

"the muggle solution."

Reaching the other end, Harry sped right through the left hoop, made a horizontal loop and went back through the right one.

"Water?"

"Yes, oh honorary brother,"

"now shut up and beat the captain."

The twins were still going all out in their attack on him but his movements went on auto pilot as he focused on the keeper, who was waiting in front of the middle hoop. Harry focused on the right side and threw the quaffle as hard as he could with his left hand towards it, but it was blocked by Oliver, who just laughed at him and sent back the quaffle.

"8-4… Man! You suck without your super arm. And I'm awesome no matter what."

"Oh shut up, you idiot." Harry replied while making mental plans to spend more time trying to become ambidextrous.

Soon enough, the rest of the team arrived, Katie still having extremely wet hair, and their usual drills started. The twins maintained their back and forth of the two bludgers, while Katie followed Harry as he went on an imaginary obstacle course. Angelina and Alicia practiced passing and shooting the quaffle while Wood did his best at defending the goals.

Then the whole team played chaser vs rest of the team repeatedly while Katie filled in as the extra chaser on the defending side.

After another tiring hour, the whole team went back to get showers and to get changed out of their sweaty clothes. Harry met back up with Tonks, who had spent the last two hours going through the library, trying to find information on martial arts for her to learn.

"Find anything?" Harry asked as they sat down for dinner.

"Of course not, just stuff on meditation and shit."

"Just imagine, internet in here, then it'll be the best library in the world."

"Yeah, maybe people would've heard of it in another 50 years or so."

"Maybe our grandchildren will live in such times…"

Tonks turned to Harry with an incredulous look on her face… "We're 14. Talking about kids is supposed to be wrong for us, and here you are talking about our grandchildren. You're lucky I'm so strong, or I would be breaking up with you now."

Harry instantly made an apologetic face and pleaded, "I'm sorry, I just had an image in my head and voiced it."

"Yeah yeah, I know." Tonks smiled, "It is a nice thought though."

Harry chuckled and put his arm around her, and rested his head on her shoulder.

"Wanna shoot stuff?" He whispered after a few seconds.

Tonks just nodded and they both enthusiastically got up and went back to their dorms to get their guns.

They then met in the Room of Requirement, which was kind enough to provide them with targets, both stationary and moving.

"You wanna go first, love?"

"Making it a competition, Potter?"

"Um…" A scoring board appeared above all the targets. "Sure Tonks, good luck."

The next hour was spent shooting at dummies, at the end of which Tonks had hit a few more than Harry.

"Me bows to thee, ma'am. Any pointers for this loser?"

"Yeah, don't suck this much next time, sucker."

"Oh that hurts… Not even a consolation kiss?"

"Aw… Here you go you poor baby."

"Thank you, my lady… May I escort you to dinner?" Harry asked making gestures after a few minutes.

"Sure, sucker, uh, okay, good sir…"

Harry got a punch in the arm for laughing too loudly at that, but Tonks soon joined in.

The next evening, Harry was working at an empty table in the library when Tonks came in and put her arms around his neck, whispering in his left ear, "Hey sexy! How you doing?"

Harry chuckled lightly and turned his head to kiss her lightly before saying "It's not like that. It's… How _you _doin'?"

"Ah! Screw that, then… What _you _doin'?"

"Heh… Remember that new spell I was working on?"

"Aren't you always working on 2-3 at the same time?"

"Uh, the Iron Man one?"

"Oh, yeah, I remember that one." Tonks said sitting down next to him.

"I think I've finished it today. I'm just checking a few details about it."

"Whether or not it will kill you?"

Harry replied, "Hey how'd you know?" in mock surprise.

Tonks just smiled at him sweetly and asked, "Can I help?"

Harry started, "Do you know how rockets work?"

"Are you gonna turn into a rocket?"

"Oh, no… The spell just works in a similar way. In rockets, matter is expelled from the rocket at a very high rate, which makes it go in the opposite direction of the expulsion. With this spell, a person's magic acts as matter, it is sort of expelled from a part of the person's body at a rate that can be controlled."

"I actually understood that, babe." Tonks smiled at him.

Harry grinned back and gave her a little kiss. "Well, you're brilliant."

"Haha, well carry on."

"Right… you know how you can levitate a feather for hours easily while you can't keep a, um, heavy chair in the air even for a few minutes."

"Yes."

"And you know how most people think that physics doesn't work in the world of magic."

"But your mum disagrees."

"Yes, and me too… Well, more work has to be done to keep levitating a chair than for a feather. And more work means more magic. So, in a way, magic is related to energy. Well, you know e = mc2?"

"Einstein?"

"Yes, he discovered the formula. It's basically converting matter into energy. Now what I've been trying to do for a few weeks is find a relation between magic and energy."

"Okay…

"Now, the problem with magic is that we can't measure it. So, until we can find a way to do that, I can't really devise a relation between energy and magic. And until then, I can't figure out the rate at which my magic should be _expelled_ to make me fly. If I accidentally overdo it, I may get magically exhausted in the air after shooting up or something."

"Why don't you just start the spell at zero setting or whatever and raise it gradually?"

"I'm not sure if I can do that yet... I still have to try it out. And I was also checking if it's even possible for me to fly. I mean, if a fourth year student could do it, why hasn't anybody done it yet?"

"How many rocket scientist magic scientists are there? Or maybe some people have done it, just kept it secret. Will you be spreading it around if it works?"

"No… You're right. Well screw it, I'm gonna try it out, I'll just hold onto my broom while I go up."

"Wanna see how high the Room of Requirement can be?"

"Oh I've already seen it, many times… I ask it for an aerial obstacle course, and it's huge enough to fly comfortably."

"Well, should we make our journey to the esteemed halls of the Room of Requirement, my good sir?"

Harry laughed and responded, "Sure, sucker!"

"Oh my brave noble knight, you wound the heart of this wee little lass."

"Wee little lass? Ahem ahem."

Tonks just stuck her tongue out at him and refused to respond to that.

"Okay, here we go…" Harry pointed his wand at the middle of his joined feet, holding his broom in his left hand and with a jab, shouted "_Pellentum" _and rocketed up…

"WOOOOAAAAAAH" He shouted as he kept on gaining speed but gradually reduced his acceleration to a little less than the earth's gravity… He slowly slowed down, and then eventually stilled and started going down accelerating at a small pace. As he reached the ground a little too fast, he accelerated, again rocketing up…

"STOP IT NOW, YOU IDIOT!" Tonks shrieked at him.

Harry quickly pointed his wand between his feet and cast "_Finite"_ and got on his broom and just hovered for a few seconds. When he landed, he was quickly engulfed in Tonks' hug who whimpered in his ear, "That was so scary"

"But awesome" Harry added earning a punch from Tonks.

"You're not doing that again…" Tonks said angrily.

"Oh c'mon… It wasn't that bad. I don't feel even a little bit tired."

"You don't know how scary it was to watch… You didn't seem in control at all."

"It wasn't bad, trust me. But… I won't do it again until you think it's okay, alright? But really, it felt pretty amazing."

"Well, I'm not ever using it, you idiot." She said hugging him again.

"Okay, just imagine…" Harry said as they both sat down for dinner. "It's a beautiful evening. You're standing at the top of the Astronomy Tower. The sun is setting on the horizon. A soft wind is blowing, ruffling your hair. You're looking at the black lake, it looks serene. You take a deep breath."

"Go on." Tonks said smiling at him as he took a dramatic deep breath.

"And you take a few steps back, and then you run forward and you jump off the edge."

"What?" Tonks asked, confused.

"And you're falling oh so fast. The ground is coming closer and closer."

"Shut up Harry, shut up." Tonks said with wide eyes, trying to cover her ears with her hands.

"And just a second before you're about to hit the ground, you start flying into an arc… _With my spell! _And you nearly brush the ground as you start flying up into the sky. You're going towards the black lake and you flatten your flight as you reach its surface… Your fingers are skimming the water's surface. And you take another deep breath." He stopped and took another deep breath.

"Oh wasn't that just awesome?" He said grinning at Tonks who looked at him with a murderous look on her face.

"That's it! You're never. Using. That spell. Again." Tonks announced emphasizing her words with punches.

Harry just braced the punches laughing, and started filling up his plate.


End file.
